It's My Birthday

"It's my birthday, and I'll smile if I want to, smile if I want to, and you would smile too if it happened to you."  So.......did you sing along?  You did if you're over 50!!!!!   I had a lot to smile about today.  Of course, I always smile a bunch   anyway, but on my birthday I over smile.  Is that a concept?  Over smiling.  Is that even possible; well, I guess if you're a drooling idiot, maybe.  Not for me, though; it was an over smiling day.  

I woke up OLD today.  You can't pretend to be anything else when you wake up eligible for Social Security - now you know how old I am.  Those of you closest to me know that I've been 62 since January 1st.  I believe in changing my age on the first day of the year - it saves me the trouble of trying to remember how old I am - even I can do that arithmetic [current year - 1950 = my age].  See, I even know the formula.

It's also gratifying on your birthday to go online to discover over 40 emails, and not one of them was for penile enlargement.  I didn't make it to the post office today, so there are probably snail mail cards there.  Speaking of which, I discovered this week that the Seal Rock Post Office is a faux post office.  Somehow, it's not real even though there's a building, a sign, a flag and everything.  If you HAND address a piece of mail:  Jan/Drake Smith, General Delivery, Seal Rock, OR 97376, then it comes to Seal Rock.  HOWEVER, if a computer addresses the envelope, then the address is:  Jan/Drake Smith, General Delivery, Waldport, OR 97394.  I don't understand.  Something about Seal Rock being a contract office, but you can get mail there, mail packages and buy stamps.  I don't know why it's not real.  I did notice that it has funky hours.

Oh, and here's a good mail analogy:  Sarah Lynn has slid into Yale like a birthday card into an envelope.  Catch this:  She's having breakfast with the CEO of Patagonia this week, and she's going to hear Aung San Suu Kyi speak in person.  She's going to New York City for dinner as her birthday gift from Jay.  And how old is she tomorrow?  27.  Pretty good for 27 if you ask me. 

And shall we speak of birthday gifts?  Why not?  Here's my gift from Drake: 

It's spiny oyster, opal, lepidolite (it looks black in the picture, but it's really dark purple) inlaid with silver.  It's an artist out of Albuquerque, but he bought it from a gallery here in Newport, Oregon.  Good job, don't you think?  Looks just like me.  He says that he was reminded of a sea gull.  Plus he went shopping today to help me find a long sleeve fleece jacket - even I think it's cold here.  Then we played blackjack for a couple of hours - and the best news -  it only cost me $1.  That's my idea of a win.  We topped the day off with ice cream.  Yummy, yummy.

I love birthdays.  I actually love everybody's birthday.  There's never been a birthday I haven't enjoyed.  I like feeling special.  I like eating sugar in any form:  cake, pie, ice cream.  I'm an equal opportunity sugar eater.  It's a bonus when all your friends send messages, and you get gifts, and have a swell day.  Birthdays.....only 364 days until my next one, but even better, only 1 more day until Sarah's birthday, and 3 more days until Drake's birthday.  The only thing better than MY birthday is our family's birthday week.

Oh, final P.S.:  Thanks, Larry, you're a lifesaver - that micro cell gives us 5 bars in this dead zone of a house.  Anybody can call me anytime now.

If you haven't already figured it out, this is my thank you note to everyone who wished me a Happy Birthday today.